In Colorado House elections, most races include incumbents

Lois Court ran for re-election to the Colorado House of Representatives from Colorado's 6th District. Court has held the seat since 2009.

By Justin Voeks

In the Colorado House of Representatives, a chamber with term limits, incumbents will be on the ballot in four-fifths of the races, according to a Ballotpedia analysis.

In Colorado, all 65 seats are up for election, and incumbents are running for re-election in 52 of those races, leaving 13 open seat races. In 8 of the open seat races, the incumbent representative is ineligible to run for re-election due to term limits.

Incumbents are playing a slightly smaller role in the Colorado House elections than incumbents in most other states. In Colorado, 20 percent of the races are open seat races, but only 17.2 percent of seats nationwide are open. The difference between Colorado and the country as a whole might be due to term limits. In states with term limits, like Colorado, 31.5% of house seats are open; in states without term limits, only 12.4% are open. The data shows that, despite term limits, Colorado's incumbents are still playing a major role in its 2010 state house elections. Incumbents in Colorado are running in a higher percentage of races than incumbents in most other states with term limits.

Currently, Democrats control the House of Representatives by a 10-seat margin. Louis Jacobson, a political analyst with Governing magazine, rates the Colorado House as leaning towards the Democrats in this fall's election.[1]

None of the incumbents in Colorado faced a primary challenge. Nationally, only 23.4% of incumbent representatives are facing a primary challenge. Ten incumbent representatives, two Democrats and eight Republicans, are facing no challenge in the general election. Nationally, 19.2% of incumbent representatives are facing no primary or general election challenge.

Partisan incumbents

Across the country, more Democrat incumbents are not running for re-election than Republicans. Additionally, more Democrats are facing primary opposition.